The hip-hop is a musical genre and a lifestyle that includes many things, such as music, clothing, slang. The hip-hop of the United States started in Bronx.
The hip-hop is primarily a subculture because it has it’s our own musical style, which is Mcing (yakking to beat), rapping and Djing/Scratch = disk-scratching, it has it’s own dance culture, which is the break, it’s drawing/pictorial style is graffiti, as well as there are many sports which also can be attached to it, such as basketball and streetball.
The theme and the mood of hip-hop is loose, strong, aggressive, sometimes silly in any area of the genre. This is due to the fact that the style originates from America, especially from the time when African-Americans were suppressed. The hip-hop’s roots can be traced back in West African and African-American music.
The major historical age of hip-hop music is the so-called “Old school” age between 1970-1985. Then came the so-called golden age of hip-hop music between 1985-1995, which included the East Coast and West Coast music, to bring them over to the modern age. West Coast music was more dominant here thus the so-called Gangster rap the G-funk was created. After 1993 the so-called hardcore hip-hop appeared.
In 1929 a peaceful turnaround happened in Bronx compared to the previous years. The culmination took place in the 1970’s. As a consequence of the investments the high society moved away, but the life of the lower classes, however, has became increasingly difficult. A huge number of jobs were eliminated which caused huge unemployment rates among young people.
People spent their days in abandoned houses. They became addicts and joined youth gangs. Gangs of great concern were reported, because they are no longer “just” stood for truant, young vagabond. They were a real threat. In these difficult times it began its conquest of hip-hop.
People began to sing the happy gang of continuous wars, the bleak life, and trying to find a new meaning, searching for self-expression. The date of the foundation of hip-hop is 1973, if you can say anything at all about a musical trend. These include three important names. They were the pioneers: Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash.
Kool Herc, that is to say Clive Campbell was born in Jamaica and had a child in New York, the family moved to the Bronx. During his musical career he worked with many talents (DJ AJ, DJ Timmy Tim, DJ Clark Kent), they were the Herculoids.
Bambaataa also grew up in the Bronx. Interestingly, his name and his age is impossible to know (Kevin Donovan, born on the 10th of April, 1960). He had an important role because he wanted to put an end to the gang wars. His catchwords were peace and love. He welcomed everyone on the events, who have adapted to this attitude.
His name is also linked to the outbreak of hip-hop, and it’s wide spread outside of the Bronx.Flash (Joseph Saddler) had a Barbadian descent, but was born in New York. He founded the Flash and the Three Mcs, the Furious Four and finally the Furious Five bands.
In the 1990s the gangster rappers of the East Coast faced the ones of the West Coast. This led to the death of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. in 1996 and 1997. Let’s investigate the 6 best hip-hop songs ever (according to my opinion):
6. Immortal Technique: Leaving the Past
Rapper noted for his defiantly political lyrics. According to his Wikipedia entry, “Although he has been offered a deal with at least one major record label, he has never signed to any.
Immortal Technique has voiced a desire to keep control over his production, and has made statements in his music that he is very aware that it is record companies, not the artists themselves, who profit the most from mass production and marketing of music and has said “He would rather make a lot of a little, than a little of a lot.” He releases his music through, and is also the director of Viper Records.”
5. Foreign Heights: Get Yours
Collaboration between three hip hop artists from Sydney. The collective’s name Foreign Heights reflects the multiculturalism of Australian hip hop, since Trey’s heritage is Fijian, Maya is half Mexican and half Turkish, and Toth is from Austria. “As much as I’m a huge advocator of supporting the local music scene,” says Maya, “I also believe we should focus on what role our home is playing in the politics of the planet.”
Trey believes that, in Australia, hip hop is conducive to multicultural harmony. “It’s a space where multicultural MCs can share their thoughts and educate others about different cultures and musical styles. Hip hop also encourages multiculturalism – come to a jam, listen to the tunes. Hip hop culture creates multicultural families.”
4. Outkast: Roses
Off of Outkast’s 2003 album, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, “Roses” is one of the more humorous break-up songs, especially portrayed through the single’s music video. Instead of being upset over the break-up, Outkast presented the story of Caroline, a woman who is put up on a pedestal by other guys, but that’s simply a perspective only obtained from the outside looking in.
As Big Boi explains in his verse, “Well, she’s got a hottie’s body but her attitude is potty.” The girl had seemingly played Big Boi, expecting him to provide her with a quick place to eat, a place to sleep and be her personal driver. The song urges the narrator’s ex-girlfriend to essentially ‘get off her high horse’ or “come back down to Mars”.
Caroline, who appears to be a high maintenance woman, from the artist’s perspective, is not the type of woman that the ex-boyfriend seeks, any more.
3. Earl Sweatshirt: Grief
Earl Sweatshirt‘s excellent album I Don’t Like Sh**—, I Don’t Go Outside was announced a week before its release along with its one and only single, “Grief.” The track was a perfect preview of what listeners had to expect from the album. Earl had occupied a dark place in his prior music, but this was something entirely different.
The track had a sparse, dark beat, and Earl was rapping about his spiral into drugs. As the track goes on, Earl becomes more and more under-the-influence, and on the second verse his flow becomes slower and lazier as his high hits him harder.
Earl’s last album Doris focused a lot on the rapper’s ability to craft insanely dense verses and intricate rhymes. That’s still present on “Grief,” but the track (and the entire album) are more focused on the darkness he’s experiencing and therefore more straightforward. It’s less about being a lyrical miracle-type rapper and more about sharing his pain with the world.
2. The Dream: Mama
The Dream released his own ode to mothers simply called “Mama,” which appeared on his 2007 album Love/Hate. As a producer, singer-songwriter The Dream knows what goes into an appreciation track and this one fits right in. He wrote and recorded this song in memory of his mother who passed away but remembers on how she was the one who truly motivated him and encouraged him to see it all through.
Best Mom Lyric: “It was you that broke me through. You were everything I ever knew. If I could bring you back. I’d do it in a split second, no if, ands or buts. How I’ve been thinkin’ ’bout you. How I’ve been thinkin’ of you. If I can bring you back.”
1. Ankh Amen Ra: Darfur
My inspiration to write “Darfur” is the fact that over 200,000 innocent people have been murdered in Darfur. Over a million people have been displaced and are now living on refugee camps in eastern Chad. It’s a struggle we all should be concerned about. If you’re a human being, you need to be able to feel compassion about the death of your fellow man.
I don’t care what your racial background is. That’s one reason. Another reason is the fact that the hip-hop community and the world as a whole should to be sensitive to the issue of Darfur. I wrote the song because I want to make sure that people within the hip-hop community are aware of what’s going on.
I also wrote the song because I want people to understand the power of hip-hop music. Hip-hop music is currently under a great deal of fire, but when you write a song about “Darfur” and the critics of hip-hop hear that, they see that hip-hop music has immense power.
What other genre of music has the capacity to put all of that information into three minutes and be that powerful? That’s why hip-hop music influences youth all over the globe. And I wanted to use that power.
Thank you for reading this article of this amazingly diversified and fraught genre, hip-hop. Our next article is coming soon, stay tuned!